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Oil Spill Closes Houston Ship Channel Indefinitely

No Timetable Given for When Waterway Will be Reopened

By

Lynn Cook

Updated March 24, 2014 8:05 p.m. ET

HOUSTON—A key waterway linking refineries and petrochemical plants with the Gulf of Mexico remained closed indefinitely to ship traffic, two days after a collision triggered an oil spill in Texas' Galveston Bay.

More than a hundred ships were waiting Monday to enter the Houston Ship Channel, a 52-mile waterway that connects the Port of Houston with the open ocean, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. That was up from about 60 ships...